A discussion of interesting books from my current stock A WordPress.com site

Lucretius, has always made me feel hopeful and some how more connected to the universe and less to the subjective problems we perceive.

“Happy is he who has discovered the causes of things and has cast beneath his feet all fears, unavoidable fate, and the din of the devouring Underworld.” VIRGIL

“In De Rerum Natura, Lucretius sought to clear the mental rubbish that obscures reality. He exposed flaws in common assumptions about gods. To begin with, he scoffed at the anthropocentric notion that gods created the earth for humans.”Gary Sloan

This copy is bound in original full calf its front joint is cracked at the foot, up to the second band, the rear joint is

Lucretius 1683 ,147F

beginning to crack at either end, but it is completely sound and still quite appealing. The leaves are very clean and fresh, with deep impressions of the type.

This translation was prepared by Thomas Creech (1659-1700). The prefatory material contains commendatory poems by John Evelyn, NahaumTate, Thomas Otway, and Aphra Behn among others, many of which were added after the first edition. Creech’s Lucretius first appeared in 1682, with certain portions of the text, notably those in the fourth book about the nature of love, left untranslated.In this edition they are present in translation. Both Pope and Evelyn praised the translation, and Dibdin says that the editor’s erudition, research, and correctness in this excellent and scarce work are acknowledged by every critic.The influence of Lucretius can be seen in Pope’s ‘Essay on Man.’ Lucretius was also favorite reading of Shelley, Wordsworth, and Tennyson.

“Creech’s translation of Lucretius vied in popularity with Dryden’s Virgil and Pope’s Homer. The son of one of his friends is reported to have said that the translation was made in Creech’s daily walk round the parks in Oxford in sets of fifty lines, which he would afterwards write down in his chamber and correct at leisure. […] When Dryden published his translations from Theocritus, Lucretius, and Horace, he disclaimed in the preface any intention of robbing Creech ‘of any part of that commendation which he has so justly acquired,’ and referred to his predecessor’s ‘excellent annotations, which I have often reprinted in the last century, and was included in the edition of the British poets which was issued by Anderson.” (DNB)